My birthday is in November so I started school when I was 4. It didn't work out too well, eventually I was kept back a grade. I fit in much better after that, most of my friends were in same grade, it just felt like I should have been there all along.This was back in the 60's when there weren't any terms like "red-shirting" or "helicopter moms" or drugs to make us behave.

TheSelphie:Just enroll them when they're ready. I did Pre-K at 3.5 and Kindergarten at 4.5 and turned out fine because I was ready. If that means delaying, so be it. Don't delay them if they're ready though, that's ridiculous. lolparents

Igor Jakovsky: When I started school, the cutoff in my district was actually December 31st. I was one of the youngest in my class because I had a November birthday. I graduated at 17..My folks could have easily waited a year. A few years later they moved the cutoff to August 1st.

Very same thing happened to me (December birthday), and I am glad that I made it under the old cutoff. They actually changed it the very next year in my district. Graduating at 17 was actually pretty awesome.

My parents could never have afforded to send me to a private school, but they did send me to a private school for a year of preschool. That really ended up starting me off on the right foot for school.

Mugato:StoPPeRmobile: Orgasmatron138: ukexpat: sno man: I've seen that show, it never ends well for the guy in the red shirt.

That was my first thought - the "security guy" in the red shirt never made it back to the Enterprise.

My wife and I rented the first Star Trek reboot last week to refresh our memories before seeing Into Darkness. I laughed when I noticed the third guy that went to disable the big drilling machine with Kirk and Sulu had a red shirt on.

Redshirting poses challenges not only to children but to teachers and parents.

"The teacher is mostly impacted by it. They are dealing with children of ages ranging between four and a half and six and a half. This is a large developmental gap when trying to get through the state standard curricula," said Vela.

Isn't the problem here not the differing ages, but that the kids are being taught to a state standard curricula?

...the kind of parent that would do this would not send their kid to public school.

My soon to be 6 yr old starts Kindergarten this fall. I was informed at his IEP meeting that they have a new goal of being able to read, spell and write 40 words. They addred the write part this year and the kindergarten teacher is not amused with this. They are also supposed to be able to write a 3 sentence paragraph and write a picture to go along with it. Looks like ill have another kid to homeschool after next year. Sotime the do better when its slowed up and given more time. But my little guy can't even write his name very well right now. Took them 6 months to get him to make an X properly. Yet this is what hew is supposed to do in the next 9 months after he returns from school. riiiiight.

I was on the younger end. Turned 18 a week before graduating. My daughter is on the younger end too. I remember a girl that was even a few months younger than me, super smart though. Then there were the kids that had summer birthdays that had their license before sophomore year started, which was awesom(back before all these newfangled driving rules for new drivers.). So yeah, nothing new here.

TheSelphie:Just enroll them when they're ready. I did Pre-K at 3.5 and Kindergarten at 4.5 and turned out fine because I was ready. If that means delaying, so be it. Don't delay them if they're ready though, that's ridiculous. lolparents

Igor Jakovsky: When I started school, the cutoff in my district was actually December 31st. I was one of the youngest in my class because I had a November birthday. I graduated at 17..My folks could have easily waited a year. A few years later they moved the cutoff to August 1st.

Very same thing happened to me (December birthday), and I am glad that I made it under the old cutoff. They actually changed it the very next year in my district. Graduating at 17 was actually pretty awesome.

It was pretty cool until I got to college and couldn't go into the clubs with my friends because they were 18 and up.

mesmer242:I was one of the youngest in my class, and I was totally fine academically. Socially, I wasn't... but I was hanging out with older kids in the neighborhood, not the younger ones. My dad got "red-shirted" because they tried to put him in Kindergarten on time but there was some kind of bus drop-off mix up and he didn't handle it well and they realized he wasn't really ready. My mom was one of the youngest in her class and was totally fine socially but wasn't ready for high school math when she started 9th grade which really impacted her badly.

In conclusion, have your kids in February-May. It's easier for everybody.

I had the same issue as you, I was even better academically but it took me until middle school to figure out social situations.

I'm thinking of doing red-shirting for my kids because ADD runs in the family and it'll probably be better for them to be a bit older. It'll still depend on the kid though.

My son starts junior kindergarten (or provincially-paid daycare, as I call it) this fall. Then regular kindergarten next year. He's born in October so will start K at 4 (he's 3 now). Here, you start kindergarten the calendar year (Jan 1 to Dec 31) you turn 5. My two best friends both have kids starting the same time - one a February baby who is a big hulk of a kid that doesn't talk so good, and the other a June-born freaking genius child with social issues (he's adding and subtracting at not-quite-four). My little mouthpiece I'm not worried about. He's small, will be one of the youngest in his class, but I've seen him with groups of children his own age. He gravitates to the older ones, and within a few minutes, has the whole group organized into a small mob doing his bidding. I'm just waiting for the phone calls I'll inevitably get.

But that rambling aside, my anecdotal evidence is that even amongst 4 year olds, there is a HUGE difference of social and academic abilities. I can't imagine the disparity among 4-6 year olds. Here everyone starts that year they turn 5, or you'll suffer the stigma of being "held back" when your classmates realize you're older than them.

Oh and get to kow what they are getting ready to shove down your kids throats. Look up Common Core by Bill Gates. There is a new set of rules coming down the pike in the way they are going to teach the kids. They could not bring the scores up so they are dumbing down the lessons.

mesmer242:I was one of the youngest in my class, and I was totally fine academically. Socially, I wasn't... but I was hanging out with older kids in the neighborhood, not the younger ones. My dad got "red-shirted" because they tried to put him in Kindergarten on time but there was some kind of bus drop-off mix up and he didn't handle it well and they realized he wasn't really ready. My mom was one of the youngest in her class and was totally fine socially but wasn't ready for high school math when she started 9th grade which really impacted her badly.

In conclusion, have your kids in February-May. It's easier for everybody.

the general consensus among early childhood development specialists is that the average girl, by the time they are 5, has already developed the verbal and fine motor skills it requires to sit in a classroom for long periods of time. Plus they are already socially gregarious by nature. Boys, who pop out of the womb knowing how to kick a soccer ball and throw a baseball, develop their verbal skills much later and the fine motor skills required for pushing a pencil across paper do not come naturally until 8. This is just the average and not true of every kid. but the kindergarten teacher will tell you that the hardest part of her job is keeping the boys in their seats and getting the girls to shut up for five seconds.

Mr. Coffee Nerves:Got sent to Kindergarten at four, graduated high school at 17, college at 21.

Same here. Top in my class academically but, in retrospect, I wasn't socially mature enough and probably should have had an extra year. (My birthday was 9 days before the cutoff). Definitely shouldn't have started college at 17.

I'd name my kid "Kirk" and send him to school with an orange or yellow shirt instead.

But, seriously, this reminds me of the Worst Parents In The World I saw on a cruise ship years ago. The parents were a couple of yuppie greedball types, and they were constantly encouraging their kids to play unfair. Like when their three girls, aged about 8-10, were going on the water slide, the Type-A asshole parents were actually telling their daughters to cut in line. And, everywhere else the family went on the ship, I saw the same thing--it's like the parents were trying to raise sociopaths.

Worse yet was when I was climbing around the top deck of the ship at about 1 AM. I saw the girls--unsupervised, natch--running around the deck, climbing in funnels and basically trying to find a way to injure themselves. Some guy admonished the girls to stop fooling around before they got hurt. Their reaction? They ran away giggling and yelling "Rape! Rape! Rape!" I'll take a wild guess that their asshole parents told them to do that whenever an adult confronted them. You don't have to be Nostradamus to guess that teaching your kids to make false rape accusations is going to lead to tragedy when the girls grow up enough to be taken seriously. I'll bet the parents are total sociopathic scum along the lines of Michael Douglas' character who probably run some sort of investment scam or other ethically-questionable business...

We didn't have this shiat when I was a kid. My father sent me to kindergarten when I was two. We were too poor to afford red shirts so Dad would backhand us until our torsos and arms were beat red and say "There's your shirts, pussies." Seeing as this was back before buses had been invented, the old man had to set us up on tees out in the yard and punt us to school. If it was one of our birthdays, he would tie a pillow to our face before lining up like Janikowski and sending us on our way to the learnin' factory. Once there, the teacher taught us our ABCs by swiping the letters on to our bodies with a swashbuckler sword until we got that shiat right. Zorro style. Before we could graduate and move on to first grade, we had to defeat President Taft in an Alaskan leg wrestling match. I got held back four times before I put that fat fark on the ground. Dad was so proud that day that he punched me in the face twice, while shouting 'Snitches get stiches!" By the time we were ready for college, which was about age nine, we laughed in the faces of the Ivy League schools that were begging us to come to their schools. When the guy from Harvard got on his knees and said, "I'll suck yo dick!", I simply scratched my beard and laughed the mighty laugh of my people. Then I proceeded to pull out my junk and batted that guy over the neighboring four counties. Because back then we all had beards and huge cocks. Kids are just weak today.

Redshirting has clear athletic benefits - if your student is strong/coordinated enough to be an athlete to begin with.

Being larger and more developed makes the kid taller, stronger, and more mature throughout school. That means they will get more attention by coaches / P.E. instructors, they will get the ball far more often in teams sports, and other kids will differ to them based upon their greater fitness. That benefit is there from grade school through high school. All of that extra attention in grade/middle school will translate to far more experience when they hit high school - which means that they will make varsity squads far sooner than other kids. And three or sometimes even four years of varsity experience in high school provides a clear benefit when trying to get into college sports.

There was a shocking study done with the NHL a couple years back. They discovered that for the American NHL players - 90% graduated from high school at 19 (or older) - meaning that they were among the oldest in their class (due to being held back or redshirted). Having that leg-up all through school has clear benefits.

Redshirting poses challenges not only to children but to teachers and parents.

"The teacher is mostly impacted by it. They are dealing with children of ages ranging between four and a half and six and a half. This is a large developmental gap when trying to get through the state standard curricula," said Vela.

Isn't the problem here not the differing ages, but that the kids are being taught to a state standard curricula?

No, it's the differing ages. Let's say their was no standard curriculum. That the teacher got to decide for themselves what the roomful of children in front of them should learn. The developmental gap would still cause issues because you have one teacher trying to teach many children across a range of ages the same thing at the same time. Whether the thing being taught is the state curriculum or whatever Cletus Q farkstick comes up with, teaching a 4 1/2 year old and a 6 1/2 year old the same thing at the same time will be trouble.

Anthracite:My soon to be 6 yr old starts Kindergarten this fall. I was informed at his IEP meeting that they have a new goal of being able to read, spell and write 40 words. They addred the write part this year and the kindergarten teacher is not amused with this. They are also supposed to be able to write a 3 sentence paragraph and write a picture to go along with it. Looks like ill have another kid to homeschool after next year. Sotime the do better when its slowed up and given more time. But my little guy can't even write his name very well right now. Took them 6 months to get him to make an X properly. Yet this is what hew is supposed to do in the next 9 months after he returns from school. riiiiight.

So you're going to pull your kid out of school because they're going to challenge him.

Anthracite:Oh and get to kow what they are getting ready to shove down your kids throats. Look up Common Core by Bill Gates. There is a new set of rules coming down the pike in the way they are going to teach the kids. They could not bring the scores up so they are dumbing down the lessons.

Aren't you the guy who was just complaining that teaching a 6 year old anything more complicated than making an X was pushing them too hard?

Redshirting poses challenges not only to children but to teachers and parents.

"The teacher is mostly impacted by it. They are dealing with children of ages ranging between four and a half and six and a half. This is a large developmental gap when trying to get through the state standard curricula," said Vela.

Isn't the problem here not the differing ages, but that the kids are being taught to a state standard curricula?

Ah, we have found the retard of the thread! Thanks for showing up Mouser.

Orgasmatron138:ukexpat: sno man: I've seen that show, it never ends well for the guy in the red shirt.

That was my first thought - the "security guy" in the red shirt never made it back to the Enterprise.

My wife and I rented the first Star Trek reboot last week to refresh our memories before seeing Into Darkness. I laughed when I noticed the third guy that went to disable the big drilling machine with Kirk and Sulu had a red shirt on.

They should have got Sean Bean to play him, or some other known actor. A no-name actor in a red shirt on the away party was to big give away.

I know Gladwell's not cool around these parts, but Outliers pretty much convinced me that this is one of the best ways you can give your kid a leg up in school if you can't arrange to just have him born to older, richer, more Jewish parents, preferably in the 1870s.

Anthracite:My soon to be 6 yr old starts Kindergarten this fall. I was informed at his IEP meeting that they have a new goal of being able to read, spell and write 40 words. They addred the write part this year and the kindergarten teacher is not amused with this. They are also supposed to be able to write a 3 sentence paragraph and write a picture to go along with it. Looks like ill have another kid to homeschool after next year. Sotime the do better when its slowed up and given more time. But my little guy can't even write his name very well right now. Took them 6 months to get him to make an X properly. Yet this is what hew is supposed to do in the next 9 months after he returns from school. riiiiight.

6 months to learn how to cross 2 lines to make an "X"? Sounds like you made a gas station attendant - good for you!

Carousel Beast:I disagree, and had the same discussion with my wife about our son (birthday in June). She felt he could stand to mature another year before school. I pointed out that within a few years he'd catch up regardless. Having an August birthday myself and going through being one of the younger people in my grade level, my argument was that he could deal with any early challenges with our help, because by middle school it'd be moot. But, if we waited to send him, that'd be a year of his life he'd never get back.

He'shiatting fifth grade in August this year. The few early problems were dealt with fairly easily and he's doing fine, and, like I did, he'll graduate at 17 and head into college - without essentially being penalized a year of time.

I don't know if I agree with you on this. I think there are benefits and drawbacks to starting a child earlier rather than later, but here you only mention "a year of his life he'd never get back" and "being penalized a year of time."

To me it sounds like you're treating childhood as a race to complete, rather than something that could be enjoyable. What is the real benefit to the child of graduating at 17 instead of 18? Starting college 12 months earlier? Getting a job 12 months earlier? Having one more year of life spent on your career vs spent in childhood? By themselves, are those things really good? It's not as though by graduating from high school or college a year sooner the child won't have to compete to be successful at the next level - they'll simply have to compete a year sooner. It is really better to give a person one less year of what we would normally consider childhood, and is that year really a waste?

My wife and I had a conversation about this when she said at one point her school considered skipping her ahead a grade and I mentioned my mom had skipped a grade at one point. We both decided we wouldn't want it for ourselves or our children. We saw it exactly the opposite of you. Why steal a year of someone's development and childhood from them? Any challenges that resulted from that decision (bored at school, not challenged) we could address at home.

I'm genuinely curious as to why you came down on the side of it being a year of his life he'd never get back.

I remember the 16 year-old redheaded hottie who showed up at my college... an engineering school with 15 guys for each girl. By the end of her freshman year, she looked like she'd been riding horses from class to class.

StoPPeRmobile:Orgasmatron138: ukexpat: sno man: I've seen that show, it never ends well for the guy in the red shirt.

That was my first thought - the "security guy" in the red shirt never made it back to the Enterprise.

My wife and I rented the first Star Trek reboot last week to refresh our memories before seeing Into Darkness. I laughed when I noticed the third guy that went to disable the big drilling machine with Kirk and Sulu had a red shirt on.

Frowns on your ignorance.[images2.wikia.nocookie.net image 500x326]

The reboot is a reboot of the first Star Trek series. He is grammatically and technically correct.

Like the rest of you said- people have been doing this for a long time and I don't see what is wrong with it. Now if you only reason for doing it is 'I want him to be big enough to make varsity football.' that is dumb but if your reason is 'I don't think he is ready for kindergarten (for whatever reason).' who cares? Being 1 year behind is not going to screw someone up. Falling behind in elementary school and not being able to catch up might. (although I do agree that most kids would catch up anyway)

Also, my college roomie was only 17 when we started college and she had a few issues of not technically being an adult but trying to do things herself- nothing serious, just annoying things like 'Oh well since you aren't 18 your parents will have to withdraw this refund for you' or something like that.

TheOtherMisterP:I skimmed the article twice... Does it ever mention where the term "redshirt" comes from?

It comes from college sports. If someone is "red shirted" that means that he was on the team his freshman year, but didn't play in competition so that he retained his year of NCAA eligibility.

Hence a play who graduated from high school a year ago but sat out a year and is now using his first year of eligibility would be considered a red shirt freshman. A player who graduated from high school and immediately started playing in the NCAA without sitting out a year to develop would be considered a true freshman.

IlGreven:Earguy: simplicimus: Parents have been doing this for decades. If you know your child is not ready for Kindergarten, don't enroll them.

Yeah. My neighbors did this with their two sons 40 years ago.

Doing it for sports is asshattery, but for emotional/social/educational reasons, I think it's valid.

...and then the kid gets ridiculed for being "held back" when his friends find out.

In my grade the few kids who were held back were *not* kids who anyone did or would ridicule. Basically they were giant monsters who were a year bigger than everyone else. And everyone knew if you screwed with them they could beat you up.

If the kid *is* ready, you're just buying yourself a 1st grade year with you kid acting out because he's bored, frustrated, and not interacting at his level.

It think they should try a little harder to teach to kid's skill level because there are kids who are going to get bored and frustrated anyway. When I was working with kindergarteners- mostly helping them with reading- some of them could easily read all of the basic books they had- others didn't even know the letters yet. You think that all 6 year olds are at the same level so they all are always perfectly engaged with the lesson and never get bored (either because they already know it or because they are completely lost)?

darkvstar:mesmer242: I was one of the youngest in my class, and I was totally fine academically. Socially, I wasn't... but I was hanging out with older kids in the neighborhood, not the younger ones. My dad got "red-shirted" because they tried to put him in Kindergarten on time but there was some kind of bus drop-off mix up and he didn't handle it well and they realized he wasn't really ready. My mom was one of the youngest in her class and was totally fine socially but wasn't ready for high school math when she started 9th grade which really impacted her badly.

In conclusion, have your kids in February-May. It's easier for everybody.

the general consensus among early childhood development specialists is that the average girl, by the time they are 5, has already developed the verbal and fine motor skills it requires to sit in a classroom for long periods of time. Plus they are already socially gregarious by nature. Boys, who pop out of the womb knowing how to kick a soccer ball and throw a baseball, develop their verbal skills much later and the fine motor skills required for pushing a pencil across paper do not come naturally until 8. This is just the average and not true of every kid. but the kindergarten teacher will tell you that the hardest part of her job is keeping the boys in their seats and getting the girls to shut up for five seconds.

"Just the average" and "statistically significant" can still mean those bell curves are a hell of a lot closer together than you think. I say this as a parent of a daughter who learned how to throw a ball before her peers and didn't speak almost at all until age 2 (thank god she caught up suddenly before we had to get her evaluated again). Schools in general are pushing all kids to shut up and sit still far before it's developmentally appropriate.... that's a battle we should be fighting for all kids, not just boys or girls.

Anthracite:Oh and get to kow what they are getting ready to shove down your kids throats. Look up Common Core by Bill Gates. There is a new set of rules coming down the pike in the way they are going to teach the kids. They could not bring the scores up so they are dumbing down the lessons.

This is a link to a blog on it but there are links to other sites.

http://midtown.patch.com/blog_posts/common-core-by-bill-gates

If you think the common core is dumbing down kindergarten, you should stop reading blogs busy with "OMG! Bill Gates!" and start reading the actual standards.

My wife's nephew (more accurately - the nephew's crazy ass wife) decided to redshirt all of their kids with the specific intent of giving them a leg up on their peers regarding both academics and sports. Related: She also thinks Jesus rode a dinosaur into the sunset. Or the fossils were placed on earth by the hand of God to test our faith or something.

The kids are all < 10 so the jury is still out on how her cunning plan is going to work out. I'll report back in this thread in 5 years to let you all know the outcome.

My parents technically put me into school a year early (my birthday was in mid-August) and despite excelling academically, the schools would always try to hold me back a year because I was younger than all the other kids.

The fact that they wanted to hold me back for something as stupid as my age upset me--particularly since I had passed the year before with straight As, so there was no GOOD reason to hold me back. Thankfully, my parents fought for me, so I never was held back, but the memory of that laid the foundations for me to become quite the cynic.

"Why should I work hard? Those jerk administrators will just try to keep me behind for my age anyways. Why should I care that the other kids are older than me? Those other kids are stupid and I do not care what they think." X-D

Oh I'm totally going to do this with my kids, in fact I'll keep them home so long before I let them out into the cruel competitive world that they'll be like Rodney Dangerfield by the time they hit High School.

Also, FTA... "leave home"? So starting kindergarten is 'leaving home'? No wonder these helicopter types are worried, I had no idea starting kindergarten now meant getting your own place and flying the nest, how times change.

Redshirting poses challenges not only to children but to teachers and parents.

"The teacher is mostly impacted by it. They are dealing with children of ages ranging between four and a half and six and a half. This is a large developmental gap when trying to get through the state standard curricula," said Vela.

Isn't the problem here not the differing ages, but that the kids are being taught to a state standard curricula?

No, it's the differing ages. Let's say their was no standard curriculum. That the teacher got to decide for themselves what the roomful of children in front of them should learn. The developmental gap would still cause issues because you have one teacher trying to teach many children across a range of ages the same thing at the same time. Whether the thing being taught is the state curriculum or whatever Cletus Q farkstick comes up with, teaching a 4 1/2 year old and a 6 1/2 year old the same thing at the same time will be trouble.

He said state standard curricula not standard curricula. The two choices are not the United Nations's Common Core Curricula OR none (or whatever Cletus is to you) Most people I know want the parents in the district to decide what the curricula is for their schools through an elected locally representative controlling body, not some faceless nameless numbskull in some far away capital that has never set one foot in a classroom teaching anybody anything or an individual teacher.